Kohima, January 31 (MTNews): The Chief Electoral Officer Nagaland, as directed by the Election Commission of India, has ruled that no Political Party or Candidate or any other organization or Person shall publish any advertisement in the print media on the polling day and one day prior to polling day, unless the contents of the advertisement proposed to be published by the Political Parties, Candidates, etc., are pre-certified by them from the Media Certification & Monitoring Committee (MCMC) Committee at the State/District level in the State.

 

This directive was issued in exercise of its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution, and all other powers enabling it in this behalf in order to ensure that no untoward incident takes place because of any inflammatory, misleading, or hate advertisements.

 

Highlighting the issue of pre-certification of political advertisements in print media on the day of the poll and one day prior to the poll, the CEO Nagaland cited the Election Commission of India letter Dated 19th October 2020, wherein the Commission has noted that “instances of advertisements of offending and misleading nature published in print media have been brought to the notice of the Commission in the past. Such advertisements in the last stage of the election vitiate the entire election process. The affected candidates and parties will not have any opportunity of providing clarification/rebuttal in such cases.”

 

It was further directed that in order to facilitate the process of pre-certification of the newspaper advertisements and as instructed above, MCMC at State/district level have been asked to be immediately alerted and activated in order to examine and pre-certify all such advertisements received from the political parties and candidates and others. “It should also be ensured that the decision by MCMC is made expeditiously,” the CEO stated.

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